Ryan McDonagh trade was an epic fail for Canadiens

Trading Ryan McDonagh to New York Rangers might have been Montreal Canadiens' biggest mistake

Why is Ryan McDonagh a New York Ranger?

We may not know the answer until Bob Gainey writes his memoirs — and maybe not even then. It will depend on how candid Gainey plans to be if and when he sums up the triumphs and tragedies of his tenure as Canadiens general manager.

The 2009 trade that made McDonagh a Ranger might have been the worst move Gainey made during seven years of running the team, neck-and-neck with the 2006 deal that sent Mike Ribeiro to Dallas for Janne Niinimaa.

While we wait for the former GM to begin pounding the keys, Canadiens fans may gain some understanding of the McDonagh trade by turning to the pages of Moby Dick. Like Captain Ahab’s obsession with finding the great white whale, Gainey was in search of a centre with size and skill.

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The seeds of the McDonagh deal were sowed after the 2007-08 season. To the surprise of everyone, the Canadiens went from 10th place in 2006-07 to the top spot in the Eastern Conference. They finished the 2007-08 regular season with 104 points and were the highest scoring team in the league, with 262 goals.

But the wheels fell off in the playoffs. The beat Boston in Game 7 in the first round, and won the opening game against Philadelphia in the second round. Then they lost four straight.

So Gainey set the rigging on his whale boat and went fishing for Mats Sundin, thinking the Toronto veteran would be the ideal centre for a top line that would include Alex Kovalev, fresh off a 35-goal season, and Alex Tanguay, acquired from Calgary. Gainey got exclusive negotiating rights to the Leaf centre prior to Sundin becoming a free agent on July 1, then spent the summer in pursuit of the player he saw as the missing link.

It didn’t happen. And that is probably just as well, because Sundin was underwhelming during his brief stint in Vancouver.

But Gainey still wanted a big centre. And during the 2008-09 season, the Canadiens GM set his sights higher than a washed-up Leaf. There were trade talks with Tampa Bay about Vincent Lecavalier. The Hockey News ran a Photoshop picture of Lecavalier in a Canadiens uniform. But Lightning general manager Brian Lawton enraged Gainey by leaking the names of players who might be heading south: Tomas Plekanec, Christopher Higgins and Josh Gorges.

The deal was never consummated. And the Canadiens’ centennial season was marred by weird stuff, from the unlucky barber-pole uniforms to rumours that the Kostitsyn brothers were consorting with low-level mobsters. The team floundered, and Gainey fired his best friend, Guy Carbonneau.

Taking over behind the bench, Gainey got an up-close look at what had become a listless, dysfunctional hockey club. The Canadiens limped into the playoffs and were swept by Boston.

And in the summer of 2009, Gainey decided to blow up his team. Before he signed free agents Michael Cammalleri and Brian Gionta, Gainey hit the trade market with the usual item at the top of his shopping list.

Glen Sather saw him coming.

The Rangers general manager knew Gainey had struck out on Sundin and Lecavalier. He did not have a player of that calibre to dangle, but the Rangers roster included a centre who was a whole inch taller than Saku Koivu.

Scott Gomez won the Calder Trophy with New Jersey in 2000. Six years later, he scored a career-best 33 goals for the Devils and, despite a slump the following season, signed a rich long-term contract with the Rangers.

Two seasons in New York proved to Sather what would become painfully evident to Montreal hockey fans: Gomez was a player in decline, carrying a toxic salary-cap hit. How this escaped the attention of the Canadiens’ front office is a mystery that may be revealed when memoirs are written by Pierre Gauthier, who was running the team’s pro scouting at the time.

The Canadiens wanted to unload Higgins, and a straight-up Higgins-for-Gomez trade would have rid both clubs of unwanted players. But the Rangers got more. Sather’s scouts had coveted McDonagh since the Minnesota high school defenceman had dazzled them during workouts at the 2007 draft combine — a telltale fitness indicator on a defenceman who would play 53 minutes in a triple-overtime game this spring.

The Canadiens selected McDonagh 12th overall in 2007, in a Montreal draft class that also included Max Pacioretty, P.K. Subban and Yannick Weber. But two years later, McDonagh was gone — a spare part in the deal that landed Gainey the centre he thought the Canadiens needed.

Epic fail, as the current playoffs prove. Along with Dan Girardi, Marc Staal and Michael Del Zotto, McDonagh forms the heart of a New York defence corps that will be very good for a long time. And on the team that traded McDonagh, Gainey is gone, Gomez is almost certainly going … and 5-foot-7 David Desharnais is the No. 1 centre.